Poppy Harlow

Two moments the biographies skip

Poppy Harlow spent 16 years at CNN, and the standard biographies reduce that span to a résumé: business correspondent, CNN Newsroom, CNN This Morning, departure in 2024. What those profiles never mention are the two on-air moments that actually defined her public record.

The first came in March 2013, when Harlow covered the verdict in the Steubenville, Ohio, rape trial live for CNN. With the two convicted teenagers — 17-year-old Trent Mays and 16-year-old Ma’lik Richmond — facing sentencing, Harlow told viewers on air that they had “literally watched as their life fell apart” (Poynter). Journalists including Lauren Wolfe, director of the Women’s Media Center’s Women Under Siege project, called out Harlow and CNN legal analyst Paul Callan for appearing to sympathize with the convicted men, and for highlighting that the victim was “allegedly drunk.” Poynter’s account noted that Harlow “didn’t talk, though, about the traumatic effects that rape can have on young women,” and quoted Salon’s Irin Carmon observing that “we rarely see such compassion evinced for young offenders when the crime isn’t rape, or when they lack the social status of football players” (Poynter).

The second came a decade later, on February 16, 2023, on CNN This Morning. When co-anchor Don Lemon said of presidential candidate Nikki Haley that “when a woman is considered to be in her prime in her 20s and 30s and maybe 40s,” Harlow pushed back on air: “Prime for what?” — then, when Lemon defended himself, “Are you talking about prime for like child bearing?” (Adweek). Lemon’s answer — “Don’t shoot the messenger. I am just saying what the facts are. Google it” — became the flashpoint. The New York Post reported that Harlow briefly walked off the set. The following Monday, with Lemon absent, Harlow told viewers simply: “Don has the day off” (Associated Press). Lemon later apologized, and CNN CEO Chris Licht called the remarks “upsetting, unacceptable and unfair” (Associated Press).

Both episodes live on the record, fully reported — and absent from every leading biography of Harlow, which prefer her birth date, her husband’s name, and her estimated net worth.

The business journalist

Harlow — born Katharine Julia Harlow, with “Poppy” a childhood nickname — came to CNN in 2008 as a business specialist rather than a generalist. Before CNN she had anchored and reported for the Forbes Video Network and NY1 News’ Local Edition, and at CNN she began as anchor of CNNMoney.com while reporting for CNN and CNN International (Associated Press; Penguin Random House). She became a New York-based correspondent in April 2012 (TV Insider).

Her signature franchise was “BossFiles with Poppy Harlow,” the CNN podcast she created and hosted. The guest list reads as a cross-section of American business leadership: Warren Buffett, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, Jay-Z, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan, former Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, and Robin Hood CEO Wes Moore, among others (Penguin Random House). Beyond CEOs, she interviewed Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and moderated two CNN Presidential Town Halls (Columbia College).

The reporting earned her multiple Emmy nominations and industry awards, including the Gracie Award for best online investigative feature on financial fraud and SABEW’s Best in Business award for online video (Penguin Random House). She also launched “American Opportunity,” a multimedia series on income inequality and the opportunity gap for women and minorities (Penguin Random House).

From the field

Harlow reported from breaking news around the world. After the 2015 Paris terror attacks she anchored from the ground there for two weeks, centering the personal stories of victims and their families; she also anchored extensive coverage of the Boston Marathon bombings, and in the years that followed she reported repeatedly on the recovery and resilience of several women who lost limbs in the attacks (Penguin Random House). Her farewell statement recalled covering the financial crisis from Wall Street to Detroit, sitting with young women in jails in East Tennessee and on Rikers Island, and listening to grieving parents who lost children to the opioid crisis in Ohio (TV Insider).

The Yale detour

On August 17, 2021, Harlow announced on CNN Newsroom that she was stepping away from daily anchoring — her co-anchor slot alongside Jim Sciutto would be covered by rotating guest hosts — to study for a Master of Studies in Law at Yale Law School (TheWrap). It was a two-semester program, and she kept serving as a fill-in anchor while also working on a project for CNN+, the network’s forthcoming streaming service. The catalyst, she said, was covering the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg the previous year: “It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time,” she told viewers, adding, “if this year and a half has taught me anything, it is, ‘Why not try?’” (TheWrap).

CNN chief Jeff Zucker publicly supported the move, saying she would “come back enriched and so much better for it” (TheWrap). She completed the degree in 2022 (Columbia College).

CNN This Morning and the exit

In September 2022, CNN announced that Harlow would leave CNN Newsroom — where she had co-anchored with Sciutto since 2017 — to co-anchor a revamped morning show alongside Lemon and Kaitlan Collins (TV Insider; Columbia College). The rebranded CNN This Morning launched November 1, 2022 (Adweek). It never found ratings traction: Adweek noted at launch that the show had “not moved the needle much,” and in early 2024 CNN scrapped the format and moved the program’s production to Washington, leaving Harlow off the air (Adweek; Associated Press).

On Friday, April 26, 2024, Harlow announced in a memo to colleagues that she was leaving CNN after 16 years. She had about 18 months left on her contract but could not reach agreement with management on a new role; the parting was described as amicable. “The nearly two decades since have been a gift,” she wrote. “This place has shaped me as a leader, taught me resilience, shown me the value of perspective and how to make hard decisions” (Associated Press). Mark Thompson called her “a unique talent who combines formidable reporting and interviewing prowess with a human touch that audiences have always responded to.” For her next chapter she said she planned to walk her children to school and “support the evolution of journalism in every way I can, while preserving the human(ity) in it” (Associated Press).

Books and recognition

Harlow is a children’s book author. The Biggest Little Boy: A Christmas Story was published in 2021; The Color of Love, co-written with NBC’s Laura Jarrett, followed in May 2024 (Columbia College; Penguin Random House).

She graduated from Columbia College in 2005 (CC’05) with a bachelor’s degree in political science, magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, and earned her Master of Studies in Law from Yale Law School in 2022 (Columbia College). Columbia gave her the John Jay Award for distinguished professional achievement in 2020, and she returned in May 2024 to deliver the keynote at the College’s Class Day (Columbia College). She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute (Columbia College).

Harlow is married to Sinisa Babcic. The couple have two children: a daughter, Sienna, and a son, Luca (Columbia College; TV Insider).

What this profile does not claim

This profile does not claim a specific salary or net worth for Harlow — figures circulate on bio aggregators but were never verified. It does not state an exact wedding date or the children’s exact birth dates (only the months are sourced). It makes no claim about Harlow’s career or residence after leaving CNN in April 2024, and it does not cover the reported 2015 on-air fainting incident, which appears only in aggregator bios. The Steubenville and Lemon episodes are described as reported by Poynter, the AP, and Adweek; this profile draws no conclusions about Harlow’s intent beyond what those reports documented.